Just a few hours ago, Fisker Automotive announced that it was able to determine the cause of the latest fire that destroyed a Karma hybrid/electric sedan. Now, we’ve learned that Tesla Motors/Space X CEO Elon Musk is jumping into the fray to kick Fisker Automotive while it’s down in an interview with Automobile Magazine. It should be noted, however, that Musk and Fisker Automotive founder Henrik Fisker have a rocky past (read this article for some background information).

Musk was somewhat diplomatic when talking about the Karma’s styling, noting, “It looks good. Particularly from the side it looks good. I don’t love the front. It looks too much like a caricature of a Mexican Bandito—the grille.”

But the emphasis on over-the-top styling lead to one of Musk’s main criticisms of Henrik Fisker and the Karma sedan. “The fundamental problem with Henrik Fisker — he is a designer or stylist… he thinks the reason we don’t have electric cars is for lack of styling. This is not the reason. It’s fundamentally a technology problem."

In other words, the Karma is all style with little substance.

Henrik Fisker and the Fisker Karma [Image Source: Car and Driver]

Musk goes on to state that the voluptuous bodylines of the Karma make for an oddly packaged vehicle. For example, despite the fact that Karma weighs as much as a full-size SUV (5,300 lbs) and is nearly 200" long, it has very little cargo capacity and can only seat four people.

Although Musk doesn't allude to the Model S in this section of the Automobile Magazine interview, the Model S is faster, features both a front and rear trunk, and can seat five people in its base configuration. The Model S can also seat up to seven with optional rear-facing jump seats installed in the cargo hold (Elon Musk has five children and wanted to be able to transport them all in the Model S).

Musk also took Fisker to task over outsourcing much of the development of the Karma to other companies (most of the development for the Model S was done in-house). "He outsourced the engineering and manufacturing. But the fact is…that’s the crux of the problem. And he’s outsourcing to people who don’t know how to solve the problem."

To sum up his thoughts on the Karma, Musk proclaimed that the vehicle is "a mediocre product at a high price." The Fisker Karma starts at $95,900 while the entry-level Model S starts at $57,500 and can hit $105,400 for the "Signature Performance" version.

Calling their entire strategy with the car "dumb", the original motor was garbage, and also saying that using the Elise chassis (which wasn't designed with batteries in mind) and having to modify it was "dumb".

He also said that it would have cost them less to build it from scratch. If that isn't bashing, I don't know what is.

It's all about the phrasing. Calling his competitor's product a "stupid Mexican sombrero" looking thing is quite different than those statements you highlighted of him acknowledging Tesla shortfalls in a modest way.

Musk has a personal beef with Fisker, that much is clear. This is just him wanting to kick mud in the face of a competitor when he's down, and taking advantage of the situation.

Wait... where did he call it a "stupid Mexican sombrero"? I haven't seen the interview, just the snippits here on Dailytech, but I don't see anything that Musk said about Fisker that is even remotely as harsh as the snippit Brandon posted where Musk talks of his own company's failures.

In fact, all the quotes in the main Dailytech article seem true, as far as I see. The very first about the looks just being opinion, but which I do agree with; that front does look like a silly mustache you'd see on Yosemity Sam or something.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer